


A Speech to Change the World

by blackflowercrowns



Series: Girlsies Week 2018 [2]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Canon Era, Sarah is a bamf and I Love Her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 09:32:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14422545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackflowercrowns/pseuds/blackflowercrowns
Summary: Sarah's graduation speech.





	A Speech to Change the World

Davey seemed to enjoy college. A lot. He was certainly smart enough for it, and Sarah was really proud of him for doing so. But every time he brought it up, this nasty feeling set up camp in her gut. She didn’t know what it was, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant.

It hit Sarah one Thursday when she was hanging out laundry on the roof. 

“Envy!” she said all at once. A few pigeons at the edge of the roof fluttered away. 

“I’m jealous that he’s going to college!” She dropped Les’ holey shirt back in the basket and began to pace. “I want to go to college!”

Sarah stopped. “I want to go to college,” she whispered in disbelief.

A grin spread slowly across her face. “I want to go to college!” Sarah shouted.

She ran down the stairs from the roof to the Jacobs family apartment, stopping only to grab a hat to cover her hair. She ran down the several flights of stairs to street level and started running in the direction her twin was. She knew he had English today, and she was fairly certain she knew the building. She’d brought him his lunch a few times.

Sure enough, she reached the English building right as Davey walked out. “David!” she called.

His head snapped up at her voice, and he looked out over the quad for her. “Sarah!” he yelled in delight upon seeing her. She ran to him and grabbed his forearms.

“David! I figured it out!”

“What?” he laughed. “The meaning of life?”

“Might as well be!” Sarah grinned. “I want to go to college!”

Davey stopped, stock still. “You what?”

Sarah paused. Did he not like the idea? “I want to go to college.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “It’s going to be hard. And you’ll face lots of opposition. I’ll help any way I can, but there’ll be times they can get to you and I won’t be there to protect you.” His tone was full of brotherly concern, but Sarah just rolled her eyes.

“I’ll be fine! Or have you already forgotten how I punched Oscar’s ugly mug last year?”

Davey laughed. “Okay, you got me there.”

Sarah grinned at him before turning serious. “So, do you think I can do it?”

Davey smiled. “Of course. You’re my sister! We took down a newspaper giant, college’ll be a snap!”

~~

College wasn’t a snap, but she got through it. Not only did she get through it, Sarah Naomi Jacobs graduated top of her class, tied only with her brother. On the day of graduation, Sarah sat on the first row beside Davey, anxiously awaiting their turn to speak. They were valedictorians, and although only David was technically allowed to speak, they had different ideas. 

The speaker finished up and motioned Sarah and David to come forward.

“Hello, everyone, and welcome,” David said. The auditorium was silent. “As he said, I am David Jacobs and this is my twin sister, Sarah Jacobs.” Sarah waved. “We are the valedictorians of the graduating class of 1905!”

The auditorium erupted into cheers and whistles, most notably from the section where the Jacobs’ family and their dozens of children (a.k.a. the newsies) were seated. Jack even had his fingers in his mouth as he whistled in appreciation.

The twins grinned at them before motioning for them to hush. “Jack,” Davey started, “I know Kath ‘n Crutchie are tellin’ you to hush, so you’se best get on with it so we can finish.”

Jack let out one final whistle as the crowd laughed. The deans looked mildly uncomfortable, but the Jacobs’ were less than concerned about that. “But since there’s two of us, the deans said only one of us could talk. So now I hand the stage over to Sarah, the true hero of this years’ class.”

The crowd cheered as a gloomy look settled over the deans’ faces. At their many graduation practices, David had been the one to talk, specifically because they had said that Sarah couldn’t. However, it seemed that the deans had failed to make the connection between Davey Jacobs, president of the newsboy union and leader of the successful strike and David Jacobs, valedictorian of New York City College. However, Davey made sure to make the connection for them when he allowed his healthy disrespect for authority to make way for Sarah to speak at the podium.

“Hello, everybody,” Sarah said. You could hear a pin drop, everyone was so shocked. Even the rowdy freshmen were silent as she spoke. “As my brother said, only one of us could speak. But before we could make the decision, the dean kindly made it for us. He came up to us and said that only Davey would be able to make a speech. We asked why, and he gave us a long and wordy answer, but basically, it boils down to this: I’m a girl.

“Now, let me tell you exactly why that is one of the dumbest statements I have ever heard.” The crowd tittered. “Yes, I am a girl. Yes, I have long hair, and a nice figure, and dare I say, I’m quite pretty." The crowd laughed and she smiled. "But there is more to me than my feminine appearance."

Sarah took a deep breath to signal the shift of her topic. "One thing that they don’t tell young men about when they are going away to college is the harassment they will face in the classroom. They fail to mention that boys will crowd around you, talking to you, asking you out to dinner, inviting you back to their place, or God forbid call you a stuck up bitch.

“They don’t mention how people will expect you to be smarter than anyone else there. How B’s are not good enough, and that if you make anything less than 100% an entire classroom decrees that _‘maybe men shouldn’t go to college. Maybe they are too dumb, maybe they shouldn’t be allowed in._ ’ No young man gets told that when they leave to pursue a higher education. Would you like to know why?”

The entire auditorium was silent. Their fellow seniors and even the underclassmen were staring at the ground in shame. The newsies were looking up with faces beaming with pride, and mothers looked at her in horror. Men had smug looks on their faces, more than a few were angry, and Sarah was sure that she’d seen her grandmother storm out. But that didn’t matter. What mattered is that steps be taken so that things like this stopped happening to girls who chose to follow in her footsteps.

“They aren’t told about them, because these things don’t happen to men. Men aren’t harassed as they walk to class. They aren’t told to go home, they belong in the kitchen. They aren’t invited out to dinner after class, and when they are declined they certainly don’t get insulted for it. They aren’t ganged up on and talked to while the professor is lecturing. Their hair isn’t pulled, the professor doesn’t save the hardest question for them just to watch them flail trying to answer it. They aren’t pressured to have a 4.0 grade point average. They’re allowed to make B’s and C’s and D’s without anyone blaming their entire gender for it. They aren’t faced with impossible standards and mocked for not meeting them.

“But I was. I am. I will be. That is my lot in life, and I have decided to accept it. My chosen career will not be easy, but I will do it. I will fight tooth and nail to prove that I can do it as well, if not better, than any man they consider for the job. I am one of the first in a line of many who will shake this world to its core, and change the very thread it operates on.

“However, that doesn’t mean every woman has to face the same trials I have. So now I speak to the underclassmen, the ones that watch us up on this podium with envy, and can’t wait for their chance up here.” She turned her head from looking out over the crowd in general to looking specifically at the college students. Smalls and Sniper caught her eye from where they sat with the freshmen and gave her a thumbs up. 

“You are in a position of power, here. You were the ones who caused me so much strife. You have the power to make or break a new world, one where women are treated as equals. I know none of you have forgotten the age of strikes only a few years ago. And for those of you who don’t know, Davey and I actually lead one, along with Jack Kelly, the boy who was whistling awhile ago. We successfully beat the New York World at their own game, and you want to tell me I can’t graduate?” she let out a dry laugh. “Well look at me, I took your taunts and I rose above, and I not only graduated; but graduated valedictorian.

“So here’s the bottom line: _the world is changing._ We are no longer satisfied with the life we live. We are standing up to demand a place at the table, and we will not rest until we have one. We will be victorious. So, are you going to help? Or are you going to be one of the many we crush on our way to the top?” With that, Sarah stepped back from the podium. Everyone in her family jumped to their feet, their cheers and whistles and applause echoing throughout the room. 

Slowly, the students started clapping as well, until they were all standing as well. It started in the freshmen section and moved up until the entire student body was on their feet. At the pressure of the students, many more of the audience began to cheer, until they were so loud the rafters shook at their volume. Sarah looked out on the crowd, and her eyes began welling up. She knew that it was unlikely that this energy and fervor would continue, but for now, she had done something.

She had made a speech that would change the world.


End file.
